How to respond to a cold call email from an associate at a big VC firm

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August 14, 2012 11:02 AMBrad Feld / Feld Thoughts

We have investments in a lot of companies that are growing very quickly. They end up on the calling (now emailing) lists for a bunch of VC firms who have an outbound deal flow program. These emails ofter appear immediately after a large financing is announced.

Recently, I’ve been forwarded a few of these emails from CEOs of companies I’m an investor in with the question “how do I deal with this?” I realized I was giving the same advice each time so I figured it was time for a blog post on the issue.

The first email that you get looks something like this.

Hope all is well. I want to reach out to introduce myself and reintroduce my firm as you may remember trading emails with one of my colleagues a few years back. I also wanted to pass along congratulations on the round you and the team raised. It is obviously a testament to the continued progress and success you and the team have made since our last check-in.

Given you raised capital recently, I don’t imagine there are any funding needs in the immediate future, but I wanted to reach out to put our firm back on your radar screen. We seek to invest $somebignumberM+ with a huge focus on internet and therefore wanted to reintroduce us as a relevant party for the future.

If you’re up for it I would love the opportunity to briefly introduce our firm, our strategy and portfolio, and discuss ways we might be helpful in the future. I look forward to catching up.

As a CEO, the real value to you right now is what someone like this can do for you. In addition, they are offering to introduce themselves to you in order to earn your trust and interest when you do a next financing. So taking a meeting where you (a) get a deep overview of them, (b) learn about their portfolio, and (c) ask them for specific help with specific companies in their portfolio is how you make this worthwhile while building the relationship.

My advice is to do the following

Go through their portfolio – make sure there are companies you want intros to.

Have a meeting – don’t go out of your way for it, but do it when convenient. Don’t do it on the phone – do it when you are with them or they are in your town.

Do NOT have this meeting about your company. It’s an intro of the VC firm to you.

Do NOT feel compelled to go through your business other than at a very high level.

Ask specifically what the VC firm could do to be helpful as you grow.

Ask specifically for introductions that you identified within their portfolio.

Give them assignments – see if they follow through.

It’s always hard as an entrepreneur not to pitch your company. But resist in this particular case – use this kind of a meeting to learn as much as you can – about the VC firm, and what they know about the market you are playing in, and how they can help you right now. If you give them assignments and they don’t follow through you learn a lot. But if they do follow through, it tells you even more and can be helpful to your business.